The fragrance wheel: explained.
The fragrance wheel is one of the fundamentals of olfaction and a useful tool to help you understand better what you are drawn to. The easy-to-read diagram can help you understand fragrances and also choose your new perfume with an informed understanding. Tracing your memories through scent could bring you closer to past fond memories and could help your mental health in a myriad of ways.
The way we process scent is beautiful and complex. Smells are passed through the olfactory bulb sitting in our nose and then processed in the limbic system, the most ancient and intuitive part of our brain. It is a set of structures in the brain which are said to be hugely influential over memory, mood, behaviour and emotion. Certain notes can strongly evoke your memories or feelings, and if they are positive or vivid it’s likely you will feel a deep connection to these smells.
"The sense of smell can be extraordinarily evocative, bringing back pictures as sharp as photographs of scenes that had left the conscious mind." – Thalassa Cruso
Through this handy diagram you can understand which categories you are drawn to which helps you decide on your next choice of perfume, room scent, and even shower gels.
The fragrance wheel and its four categories.
There are four main families of different notes: floral, oriental, woody and citrus. Each note is placed in a sub-category. Scent can also be clustered based on it’s volatility: the molecular structure decides if the note is a top, heart, or bottom note of the perfume pyramid. These two factors, the fragrance family and the fragrance volatility are fundaments of understanding fine fragrance.
The four main families can often stand out to you just from reading them. Finding examples of each family around your home can be an easy activity - simply twisting the rind of a lemon, rubbing your fingers on lavender or sniffing leather - can help you understand which segments you are pulled towards.
Once you are familiar with the families and some of the sub-groups, you can use the perfume pyramid to dive deeper into olfactive knowledge. The top notes are the scents noticeable immediately, which then fade to the middle notes, and the base notes can last for hours. Having a look at the top, middle and base notes lets you understand how a perfume is composed over time.
Familiarity with the categories and the pyramid fragrances can help you when purchasing anything from candles, to moisturisers. If you know a friend’s favourite perfume, for example, you can track down the segments of the fragrance wheel that attract them, then gift them scents you know they will like.
The fragrance wheel can be a bit like the astrology wheel: working out which parts of the wheel work deeply into your limbic system can promote greater understanding about your past and present self and offer you the promise of pleasure and more self-knowledge in the future. It’s also a fun exploration, to be done either with friends or by yourself!
